Sand, Music
The wind is blurring our faces
We do not know who we are or what songs we might sing.
A stranger enters the village, lets go his horse.
A woman drags a cart filled with pots and pans,
Pulling the sky behind her.
When I was a young girl, I saw nothing,
My skin set fire to everything.
A tethered horse is pecked to death by songbirds.
In Muhagiriya everything’s laid out
As if in a Japanese garden, the sort one dreams of–
Circles of sand, beaten rocks, tree stumps
Tilting into blue. A child’s elbow pokes out of a well.
In a mosque, men kneeling, five beheaded.
And the daughters of music brought low.
……………………………
Meena Alexander (born 1951)
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